Never Give a Millionaire an Even Break

by Kane, Henry

  He followed us. “If you please, what is it?” he said.

  “Go upstairs and tell Adam Bradford that Superintendent Alfred Barnes wishes to see him,” Barnes said.

  Parker looked at me. I looked at Parker.

  Neither of us shrugged.

  “Who? Please? Bradford?” the butler said, one eye cocked upon the uniformed policeman. “There must be some mistake. There is no Bradford here.”

  Now Barnes took over, as Parker admired.

  British tones were tinged with iron.

  “What is your name?”

  “John Burns.”

  “What is your master’s name, Mr. Burns?”

  “Croyden. Mr. Croyden.”

  “And your mistress?”

  “Mrs. Croyden.”

  “They are asleep?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Same bedroom?”

  “No, sir. Separate bedrooms.”

  “Please go to your master’s bedroom and wake him.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Tell him that Superintendent Alfred Barnes wishes to speak with Adam Bradford. Is that clear, Mr. Burns?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Will you repeat it, please?”

  John Burns repeated it.

  “Thank you,” said Superintendent Barnes. “Now go and tell him exactly that.”

  The butler went out and we waited.

  We waited for at least five minutes.

  Then we heard the shot.

  I was looking at Alfred Barnes.

  I swear I saw a pleased expression flit across his face.

  Alfred Barnes was an intricate man.

  And Alfred Barnes was a compassionate cop.

  Twenty-Nine

  THE BODY of Adam Bradford, finally a suicide ten years after his alleged suicide, was taken to the morgue with a bullet in his brain. The wife was taken to Parker’s office at the station house on West 20th. There Alfred Barnes delivered the facts of life to her, but life literally.

  “The murders committed by your husband cannot be imputed to you,” he said. “Unless there is evidence of your involvement in murder, you cannot be convicted of murder. There is however a great deal of complicity on your part, and just how the law will deal with you will depend upon your attitude and cooperation.”

  She sat stiffly, a strong woman.

  “Adam Bradford is dead,” Barnes said. “The rest is up to you. The rest of your life is up to you.”

  “What is it you wish?” she said.

  “All,” he said.

  Parker brought coffee, and brandy.

  She chose the coffee.

  “First in England,” Barnes said. “The death at Dover.”

  Two months before his supposed suicide, Adam Bradford, out on bail, had killed his chauffeur. He had struck him on back of the head with a wooden statue and had then strangled him. He had removed all of his clothes and had placed him into the deepfreeze in the house at Surrey, and had disposed of all his belongings by fire, except his passport. Adam Bradford, a toothless man, had then gone to his dentist complaining that his dentures hurt because of improper fit, and had had a new set of plates made, upper and lower, and had retained the old ones. He had purchased a dental forceps and had extracted all of the teeth of the corpse in the deep-freeze. Then, with care, he had substituted the photographs from his passport of Barney Croyden; physically, they were of similar build and the color of their eyes was the same. For the world, Barney Croyden had been discharged, had gone to France to visit before returning home to America. Then, two months later had come the final action.

  He wrote his suicide note, he removed the body from the deepfreeze, he shoved the new plates into the mouth, he dressed it in his own clothes and invested it with his jewelry, and he drove it in his car to Dover. There in a deserted locale he put flame to the body and to the car before rolling it over a high cliff. As Barney Croyden he crossed the Channel to Ostend, went from Ostend to Paris, and from Paris to New York; and as Barney Croyden he lived quietly in New York, nurturing the new beard and dyeing that and the hair of his head, grey. In time, Mrs. Adam Bradford collected her insurance and sold her house and came to New York and met the man who had been her husband’s chauffeur and fell in love with him and married him. They were a conservative couple, rich and growing richer because of wise investments made under his advice.

  They moved in select circles and were always under dim lights because she was supposed to have an allergy: her eyes were badly affected by glare or brightness. In years, their confidence grew: their colossal prank had succeeded. And then, after ten years, within the last few months, calamity struck twice: Earl Stanhope and Peter Chambers.

  (We noted—Parker and Barnes and I—that she had kept clear of any murder involvement and we knew that after ten years nothing could be proved to the contrary.)

  “Now what about Stanhope?” Barnes said.

  “My husband was certain that Stanhope had recognized him, but Stanhope was no longer Buzzell the policeman; Stanhope would have no purpose to unmask him. To the contrary, my husband believed that Stanhope would try to profit by his knowledge.”

  “And Stanhope did try?”

  “Most circumspectly. He merely asked for a loan, on behalf of Monique, but he asked for the loan and the money went to him.”

  “But he did return a note, signed by both Mrs. Lyons and himself?”

  “Yes. My husband requested that and Stanhope was greedy. If my husband would ever try to collect, then Stanhope would make his threat. He had nothing to lose, and fifty thousand dollars to gain.”

  “But didn’t your husband feel that he might repeat this request for a loan?”

  “He might, he might not. It was for that reason that Monique was killed.”

  The Englishman was bland as butter. “I do not quite understands, Mrs…. er … Croyden …”

  “Monique’s death would be Stanhope’s warning.”

  “Ah,” said Alfred Barnes.

  She looked toward me. “That day—last Wednesday—when he went to your office, he had called first, no name, personal, and had learned that you were not in—so he came there.”

  “Just why?” I said.

  “Actually, a number of reasons. First, he intended to worm his way into your inner office before you arrived so as to pick up something associated with you, some weapon, even a paperweight, that would associate you with the death of Monique Lyons.”

  “Hell, but why?” I said.

  “You too were a threat but rather a remote one. He knew that you had seen him in Superintendent Barnes’s office, but that was ten years ago and for but a short while. It was hardly likely that you would recollect, but it would be good to keep you out of the way, in prison, possibly. But there was more to his method.”

  “Sister,” I said, “I’m dying to hear.”

  “He knew, of course, about her and Tommy and about Tommy’s wrath at her. Her death, then, could easily be attributed to Tommy. He also knew, through gossip, that you were in Tommy’s way with regard to Arlene. Thus if you were not actually implicated in Monique’s death, then it would be Tommy who had tried to implicate you; all Tommy then, and none of it Barney Croyden.”

  “Very good,” I said. “Very good indeed.”

  “That was one reason for coming to your office. The next was to inform someone—in a position to pass it on—that any blackmail was against me rather than him.”

  “He informed me,” I said.

  “In your office he found the best possible weapon, a gun. And it was in the best possible place, in an unlocked drawer—thus any of your clents might have taken it. Checking about in your files, he learned your home address and the address of your garage. When he left—with your gun—the idea about the hit-and-run occurred to him. From a phone booth in the vicinity where you lived, he called your garage. Although some vestige of British argot remained with him, he could sound thoroughly American.”

  “British argot,” I said. “Like ‘I ra
ng you up’ instead of ‘I called you up.’” That went by her but it did not go by Alfred Barnes. Nor did it go by Parker, who looked bewildered at this point.

  “He called the garage as Peter Chambers and asked that they bring the motor car round to your apartment house.”

  “Wednesday afternoon? Why?” I said.

  “Dry run,” she said. “Rehearsal. He wanted to know if it would work out.”

  “It worked out?” said Alfred Barnes.

  “The motor car was delivered and when the chap went away in his motor scooter, my husband got in and drove off.”

  “Drove off where?” I said.

  “Please remember my husband told me all of this afterward.”

  “Naturally,” I said. (She was keeping her skirts clean. If she was lying, none of us could prove that.) “Where did he drive off to?”

  “He had duplicate keys made to your car.”

  “Why?” I said.

  “He intended to use it that night. He felt that, possibly, if the car were delivered to your residence at night, the keys would be taken away; that you had duplicate keys.”

  Parker said, “In other words, he wasn’t taking any chances.”

  “Exactly,” she said.

  “So?” I said.

  “Then, after acquiring keys to your car, he drove it to our home. He asked me to drive it back to your garage, giving me the address. He told me neither why nor wherefore.”

  “Naturally,” I said.

  “I drove it there, into the garage. Actually, nobody was there; perhaps they were busy; I don’t know. I turned off the ignition, went out, took a cab, and went home.”

  “And that night,” Parker said, “he first called Monique to get her coming out of the house—”

  “That he did,” I said.

  “And he repeated the operation of getting Chambers’ car out of the garage …?”

  “Yes,” she said. “And the keys were left in.”

  “And he ran her down and killed her?” Parker said.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “And his own car was waiting around the corner?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “And you were at the wheel?”

  “Oh no!” she said. “I had nothing to do with any of it. He told me afterward.”

  And none of us could prove otherwise.

  “And Stanhope?” said Alfred Barnes.

  “Please remember that he told me afterward, just what I’m telling you.”

  “Of course,” said Alfred Barnes and lit his pipe.

  “Stanhope came to our home near morning. He was furious with my husband, declaring that my husband had murdered Monique. My husband admitted it, saying better Monique than Earl. My husband said that he felt that Earl had told Monique and that Monique’s death could keep Earl alive. He said he had killed Monique because others could be blamed for it; that Earl now had all of the fifty thousand for himself; and that he would never be sued on the note because it would now be returned to him. Earl didn’t want it.”

  “What did he want?” I said.

  “More money.”

  “How much?” I said.

  “For an additional two hundred thousand he promised to return to England and never bother us again. My husband had that sum in the house, more than that sum in cash in the safe. He declared that he would give Earl the money he wanted and the note and Earl was mollified. He brought the money to Earl, and while Earl was counting it, he shot Earl with your gun.”

  “Why?” said Parker.

  “Because he knew the man could no longer be trusted.”

  Parker knew nothing about the death of Earl Stanhope but his restraint, American, matched the restraint of Barnes, Englishman, and I, unrestrained, admired the restraint of both.

  “But why did he stick him into my car?” I said.

  “He wanted you in trouble, he wanted you out of the way.

  He wiped your gun, he put on gloves, he drove Earl down, he found your car.”

  “And suppose he wouldn’t have found it?”

  “He would have parked him in your lobby—with your gun. But he did find your car outside and he used the duplicate keys and he put Earl and your gun into the trunk of your car.”

  “Then why did he ask me up to your house for the conference the next morning?”

  “Once more to take any onus off him. The facts would come from you, even if you were arrested.”

  “What facts?”

  “That you had been retained the very next day to discover who had murdered Monique. That the death of Monique meant the loss of fifty thousand dollars; that, when Earl’s death was discovered, again that meant the loss of the last hope to recover his fifty thousand dollars. But please remember, my husband told me all about this afterward.”

  Alfred Barnes, smoking placidly, gazed upon her with obvious admiration and I had to go along with that. The lady’s skirts were clean of murder all the way down the line—Croyden, Monique, Stanhope—she was hardly even an accessory. She had been told afterward, and afterward she had told us. She had hit an insurance company for three million pounds of illegal loot—nine million dollars—and even that could be explained away by skillful lawyers ten years later. She had not known of the murder of Croyden—until afterward: she had believed her husband to be a suicide and had collected the insurance in that belief. Later, in America, she had met him as Barney Croyden and out of a combination of fear and love had remarried him. She was now rich enough to make full restitution and full restitution has a monumental effect. She might get off scot-free upon an emotional appeal to an emotional jury; if found guilty, the sentence could not be too heavy: full restitution of nine million dollars can beguile even a hanging judge, let alone the prosecution and the grateful complaining witness, in this case the corporate body of an insurance company which had just recovered nine million dollars, less a few paltry hundred thousand.

  Alfred Barnes looked with admiration and I looked with admiration and even Louis Parker looked with admiration although he also looked as though he wanted to know, and quick, all about Earl Stanhope. I told him.

  The rest was mop-up, and mop-up included the disinterring of Earl and my pistol and bringing them back and explaining them with sworn statements, and then it was done, it was all done, three murders were closed cases in police files, British and American, and there were congratulations all around and then I was free to go and after all the excitement it was only one o’clock of a glowing afternoon late in May.

  Thirty

  I CALLED Ingrid Strindberg Holly and I was commanded to come at once and I came at once and I was greeted by my lady in bulging blue bandanna and poignantly protruding playshorts and she enclasped me and put her mouth on mine and her artful tongue, untalking, declared that our honeymoon had begun. She left me partially limp and totally breathless and she said, “All is accomplished. My check is in the bank and your check, this is it.”

  She gave it to me but I am an incurable romantic: I did not study it, I merely glanced to see that the figure was correct, and then I stuffed it away, hurriedly, and returned to amour.

  “We go,” she said and asked: “Today?”

  “Hooray for Acapulco,” I said.

  “Today?”

  “When would be today?”

  “Tonight, eight o’clock. I have already made the plane arrangements. Of course I can cancel.”

  “Don’t cancel. Are you packed?”

  “I am already sent, but you must pack.”

  “I’m an easy packer. I can always pick up stuff in Acapulco. May I talk for a few minutes?”

  “First, no.” She prevented me from talking for a glorious few moments and then she said, “Talk,” but I was not able to talk for another few moments and then when the gasping subsided I brought her up to date on current events.

  She was quite serious when she said, “Oh my dear man, you need a vacation.”

  “Honeymoon is vacation?”

  “Is not?”

 
“Depends upon the honeymooners. It is my hunch I will need a vacation after the vacation.”

  “It is my hunch also.”

  “I love you,” I said. “I will devour you,” she said.

  “I have one chore to attend to,” I said. “After that, I’m ready.”

  “Attend, and pack, and come to me.”

  “I will come to you.”

  “Then go now and then come.”

  I kissed her and I went.

  The chore was rough.

  Arlene.

  You cannot kiss off one affair and kiss on another without explanation. There is ethics in business and there is ethics in love and as a matter of principle I try to be ethical although I do not always hit the target. I went with trepidation and taxi-cab to East 62nd Street. I would tell Arlene my story whatever the backwash. I was no longer in love with her, I was in love with another. I practiced my oratory in back of the cab but my mouth was dry and my tongue was a lump as I pressed the button of the bell to her apartment. There was no answer and I grew braver: I would leave a note.

  I rang and rang again and was happy to have no response.

  I used the two new keys and was already composing my note to her when I saw her note to me.

  It hung by cellophane tape on back of the door.

  I read:

  Peter:

  By the time you read this I shall already be married to Tommy Lyons. Sorry. The apartment is yours for the rest of the lease, I shall never return here. Elizabeth Harrison takes over my part in the show. Tommy and I are off to Acapulco. No recriminations, Peter, please. It was nice but it is over. Arlene.

  I heard myself laughing and stifled it.

  I ventured no further into the apartment.

  I went out the door and closed it and locked it.

  Life works out its own balances. Tommy Lyons was married to a nymph but was just as married to an implacable enemy. Between Arlene Anthony and David Holly he was in the middle of a squeeze that would never relent in pressure. Already, because I am a dope, I was sorry for poor rich Tommy Lyons but to hell with Tommy Lyons and hooray for Acapulco. These were two honeymoons in Acapulco that might produce more fireworks in Acapulco than Acapulco was accustomed to, but—as far as the four participating parties were concerned—if a blight in love occurred that blight would not include boredom.